15TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN CHINA AND CROATIA CO-OPERATION WITH THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Motifs: Stone with the word China carved in the Glagolitic script Papyrus with the word Hrvatska is written in the Chinese script The Chinese and the Croats are two people who belong to two oldest cultures, China and Europe (whose component Croats have been for 14 centuries), and they have become drawn together owing to the common need: the expression of the written trace – symbol – the communicational and informational contents of their life. At the time of the great need for institutional reform of the sector of international peace and safety in the world organization of the UN, at the time of great climatic changes and natural catastrophes, at the time of the great usefulness of information and communication technologies, due to the emphasis of their own identity the need has been felt for the return to the greatest values of human presence and existence in space and time, that is the written trace and language. Though distant in terms of space as well as different in number, size and appearance, their common characteristics have remained the same. If through history we had an ambassador in the person of Marco Polo from the island of Korčula (Curzola) who brought from China some permanent traces of personal experience and material proofs which he turned into writing in his book “Milijun” (Million), then nowadays we have millions of ambassadors in the fields of technology, literature, translating, education and sport. The Chinese and the Croats, as representatives of their specific traditions in which they have been educated, mutually cooperate as international representatives in the service of peace, protection of countries as well as lives and permanent traces of the common acquisitions of humankind, which can be symbolically seen in the motifs of these scripts. The two issued stamps represent a stone tablet upon which the word Kina (China) is written in the Glagolitic script; on the other stamp, written in the Chinese script on papyrus the word Hrvatska (Croatia) is written. The Chinese and old-Croatian scripts have been used on account of their picturesqueness, expressiveness and suggestiveness in any given format. The Chinese script is an ideographic script that numbers around 50,000 signs and is characterized by the fact that it is written from the upper side downwards and from left to right. The characteristics of the ideographic script rest upon the fact that the ideograms are not strictly defined but the whole country can read them in their own dialect. The Glagolitic script is a Slavonic script that originates from the first half of the 9th century (it is assumed that its author was St. Cyril) having the purpose of serving religious missions, the religious rites of all the Slavs. It had to be easily differentiated from the Greek and Latin scripts so as not to be associated with either the Eastern or the Western Church. With the aim of defending their own cultures in the international peace forces, China and Croatia work jointly on the reinstatement of democracy, respecting of human rights, economic development, information technology and preservation of the environment – all of this having been achieved by the written signs of our cultures. Again, with the written trace, through the motifs of these joint postage stamps, we have managed to find a common denominator, because Croatia has shown that it is part of ancient Europe by its roots and its old Glagolitic script which, as the first trace of Croatian literacy and culture, is the component part of European civilization and heritage. By joint endeavour of both parties, our countries have registered numerous political dialogues and negotiations as well as a permanent intensification of cooperation in the fields of economy, culture, science and tourism. Friendly contacts and joint cooperation of these two countries are permanently on the increase, so that in the past 15 years we have built a firm framework for the future development of relations between Croatia and China. Though Croatia and China are geographically distanced, owing to the mutual respect and understanding, the relations of these two countries have developed into a firm friendly cooperation and they have thus contributed to the mutual understanding in terms of global, i.e. world relations.